Hothouse 7: Rough Animation

At this point in production I’m juggling several things at once. I’ve started to roughly animate my locked scenes in Flash while I also continue to work on editing the Leica! This isn’t typical for a regular animation pipeline, but in Hothouse we need to be clever with our time to achieve a finished film in 12 weeks. Here, I explain my basic approach to animating in Flash while using video reference:

With this setup I’m trying to simulate the experience of drawing from life in my sketchbook. Instead of rotoscoping, I have the video available to me on a second screen so I can scrub through to really feel the action as I animate on the Cintiq. Once I get the motion down, I’ll import a Quicktime version to Photoshop where I can use the Flash animation as a guide for my cleanup. The lines will be done with a custom brush that emulates the feel of ink on sketch book paper.

Welcome to the National Film Board of Canada's blog. We're dedicated to blogging about Canadian and global documentary, animation, and interactive media projects and communities. Here you'll find posts on films and media, including our new releases and historical archives, as well as behind-the-scenes info on the art of